


i've got a collar full of chemistry (from your company)

by ShippingThings



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, Episode: s02e18 Ace Reporter, First Dates, Fix-It, Fluff, I invented this ship about a week ago and its consuming my life, Jack Is Much More Of A Dork Than He Lets On, Jack Spheer Deserves Better, Jack is my son, Lyra who?, M/M, Pansexual Jack Spheer, Rare Pairings, The fluffiest thing I'll probably ever write, bisexual winn schott
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-28 21:59:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10840284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShippingThings/pseuds/ShippingThings
Summary: Working with Jack is surprisingly difficult. Not because he’s rude or entitled or thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room, it’s hard because it’s the exact opposite of what Winn expects.





	i've got a collar full of chemistry (from your company)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cursed Chat](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cursed+Chat).



> Kara doesn’t get pinned down by the nanobots because that’s dumb and Winn is there to help. Lyra who?
> 
> I invented this ship at about 10PM on Monday and it’s completely taken over my life since then.
> 
> Please. Please, write fic for this ship. I beg of you. I need it. 
> 
> Also, if you’re joining us on this tiny life raft, please… Please help us make this more of a thing, we are _suffering _.__
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> _The title is from Collar Full by Panic! At The Disco... It was the first song that came up on my Sphott Playlist when I hit shuffle so..._  
> 

Nanobots, as it turned out, were just as tricky as movies had always made them out to be, but Winn had been watching movies about them since he was four and with a life like his, he’d expected them to show up at some point, so when he’d been hired by the DEO, he’d immediately started working on solutions to combat the technology.

His first test subject, in a moment of complete desperation on the part of the superfriends, is Jack Spheer.

It’s completely unplanned, but when Kara bursts through the ceiling of the warehouse, snatching Lena up off the ground, Winn is already going as fast as he can to pull his research up and find a solution to the problem.

“Are you okay?” He hears Kara ask.

“Yeah,” a breathy voice responds.

He heaves a sigh of relief, remembering Kara’s panic when she’d realized where Lena had gone.

There’s a pause, mechanical whirring kicks up in the background. “You gotta get out of here.”

“No, I’ve got a better idea. You keep them occupied _._ ”

There is no further discussion. The telltale _whoosh_ of Kara taking off follows.

“Kara?” Winn questions, frantically tapping the buttons of his keyboard. “You gotta keep me in the loop. What’s going on in there?”

“It’s Jack’s assistant. She’s controlling him through her earpiece. How do we help him?”

“The earpiece? Well, that’s just taking bluetooth to a whole new level…” This information gives him a little more to go off of and he can narrow his search. “Okay you’re not going to want to break the earpiece. That will make him unstable-”

There’s a scream on the other end of the line.

“What was that?” Winn asked.

“She broke the earpiece.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Stepped on it and everything. This is a problem right?”

“How’s he doing?”

“Uhhh… Fluctuating…”

Winn doesn’t even have time to ask what that means before he can just make out other voices.

“Lena help… The mainframe,” a British accent pleads.

Winn recognizes the voice. Being a tech geek, Winn had watched a bunch of Jack’s lectures over the years, from TEDTalks to podcasts, Winn had really just about absorbed all of Jack’s research that he could get his hands on. So the voice in his ear is more than familiar.

“I think I can override it!” Her voice calls back.

“Lena, hurry!” Kara cuts in, the swarm of machinery sounding closer than before.

“I’m almost there, okay?”

“You’ll kill him,” a second unfamiliar voice counters. Another woman. Winn assumes by it’s vaguely threatening nature it’s the assistant. “The override destroys the nanobots. They’ve merged with him. You kill them, you kill him.”

A thud.

The sound of a body hitting the floor. Being the guy in Supergirl and Guardian’s ear has made him familiar with the noise.

Then comes a broken sounding, “I’m sorry Jack,” from Lena and it dawns on him what’s about to happen just as he finds what he needs in the database.

“No wait!” He yells into his mic, shoving back from his desk. “Kara! I think I can save Jack!” Winn hasn’t told anyone about the research until that moment, so he really hopes he doesn’t get in trouble for it as he offers.

J’onn and Alex both shoot him a look.

“What?” Kara questions, various sounds of destruction echoing around in the background.

“Get him back to the DEO!”

“I’ve got more than a few friends following me very closely, so I don’t know how-”

“Just grab Jack and get here. You want to save him too right? This is the only way.”

A silence follows.

“Trust me.”

“Okay, we’ll be there soon. You better work fast.”

Before anyone can question him he’s up and out of his seat, rushing towards the medbay for the supplies.

Kara arrives in seven minutes flat, a convulsing Jack Spheer thrown over her shoulder.

Winn pushes his urge to fanboy in favor of a more serious, “Where’s Lena?”  
“Someone had to be there to destroy the mainframe,” Kara says, all business as she pushes Jack into Winn, who’s far too tall for Winn to suddenly have to support. “Quick. The nanobots followed me-”

As if on cue, windows shatter and a swarm moves into the building.

Kara and Winn exchange a nod and she flies up in attempt to distract them. Alex comes rushing to their side to get another arm up under Jack and the begin a rushed process of dragging him towards the medbay.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Schott,” Alex grunts as they move.

He hopes he does too.

It only takes Winn nine minutes, a syringe and one shock from a defibrillator to get the nanobots to part from Jack’s body, which is when he runs out of the lab and into the pure chaos of agents rushing through the halls to combat the threat and follows the crowd to find Kara.

When he finds her, crashing through the rafters and costing what is likely to amount to a few thousand dollars worth of property damage, he shouts the all clear up at her and she takes off back towards the warehouse.

Within minutes, the havoc ceases and the robots drop like crumbs across the damaged floor.

* * *

Winn isn’t there when Jack wakes up. He’s out on patrol with Guardian when it happens, but apparently, the first thing out of Jack’s mouth is something about how companies seemed to have a horrible habit of turning people evil, or at least that’s what Winn gathers from Alex’s account. True or not, when Winn comes back to work he finds out that J’onn had offered Jack a job on the spot.

Jack had taken it. The position was for their technology development department with occasional consulting on medical issues because of his experience with disease and the few cures he’d managed to come up with years prior to ever owning a company. Spheerical Industries shuts down and nobody objects.

It’s exciting to know that he and Jack, a man he’s been admiring for years, will be under the same organization. It doesn’t even click to Winn that he and Jack will be working together when Winn goes to make adjustments to the Guardian suit and finds a man already standing in the tech lab. Winn steps through the door cautiously and the man turns to look at him.

The shock hits Winn like a spray of cold water. _Oh my God, he’s in the same room as Jack Spheer, he could literally ask him all the questions he’s ever had for him and- Jesus, he could touch him if he really wanted to and-_

And then Jack _smiles_.

Winn has nothing to compare it to. Never has he met anyone who could so completely make his heart stop. It’s big and warm, eyes bright and wide and full of an integrity Winn hadn’t expected. Then they let go and Winn would feel sad, but Jack is still smiling, so it distracts from the loss. Last time Winn had seen Jack he’d been pale and limp and practically a zombie. Winn hadn’t expected him to be so disarmingly attractive. Jack’s back straightens as he steps forward, hand coming out as an offering.

It takes Winn a moment to register he’s supposed to shake it and not just stare at the other man like he’s never seen another person before, and is taken off guard by the way Jack’s firm handshake makes him feel; a little breathless and oddly _safe_.

“You’re Winn?” he asks, accent just as unanticipated as his enthusiasm. Winn had never expected to hear the voice in person, let alone directed _at him_.

“Uh- Yeah! Yeah, that’s what they call me!”

Jack nods, somehow becoming more radiant. “You saved my life.”

“Uh… I- I guess I did.”

“You guess? What you did was _brilliant_. I never would’ve thought of that if I had been in your position.”

“Sure you would’ve!” Winn says quickly, feeling as though Jack should not be complimenting him, not when Winn’s been the one religiously following his work the last few years. “I’ve had time to work on it.”

“So have I. Seven years worth of time and I never thought about it the way you did.”

Winn moves further into the room to try and conceal the red quickly rising on his cheeks. His hands shake and the whole situation feels like something straight out of a dream. “It was no big deal. Really. I was just doing what all the idiots in science fiction movies usually don’t.”

The half hearted joke is followed by a laugh, melodus and fittingly beautiful. Winn’s never heard him laugh before.

“Well, even if you were just trying to be better than the movies, I appreciate it.” Jack’s lips tug up slightly, sincerity coming off him in waves.

Winn can’t respond right away, his heart stuttering as he attempts to process.

“And I think Lena’s probably a little in love with you for it.”

Winn nearly drops an expensive piece of equipment at that. “ _What?_ ”

“Well, not really. Lena is more of a… Woman’s woman, if you know what I mean, but she’s definitely thankful that you saved her best friend… Or _former_ best friend. That reporter girl seems to have beat me out for the position.”

Winn chuckles at that, watching as Jack nods and turns back to what he was working on. He can’t help but allow his gaze to linger for just a little longer than necessary.

* * *

Working with Jack is surprisingly difficult. Not because he’s rude or entitled or thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room, it’s hard because it’s the exact opposite of what Winn expects. Jack is _nice_ , almost unreasonably. He goes out of his way to bring Winn and Alex coffee in the morning, he smiles at Winn when he sees him, when they’re in the lab stands what seems to be just a little too close (Winn chalks it up to be a british thing), and when they make a breakthrough on something Jack always beats Winn to saying the word _genius_.

Jack had always come off stoic in interviews, cold and straight to the point. Winn hadn’t been prepared for him to be _fun_ ; he hadn’t been prepared for the countless toothy grins and jokes and casual touches and Jack liking _video games_.

Working with Jack is simultaneously easy, like slipping into a pair of worn familiar shoes, and remarkably difficult, because Winn _likes him_.

It’s exactly how Winn felt when he learned how to ride a bike at fifteen and eleven months. Fear stops him from taking any risk, the second he feels himself get anywhere close to going anywhere, whether forward or back or down, he places his feet on the ground, and stops progress. When you’re five and learn how to ride a bike, you don’t realize there’s anything to fear, but when you’re nearly sixteen, you have too many worries and too many stories floating around your head supplying all the reasons it could go wrong. If Winn had never liked anyone before Jack, he might be more inclined to take a risk, but he has, and those instances are enough to make him keep his mouth shut.

* * *

Devices for Kryptonite protection come much faster with Jack around. They’ve created better armor for Kara and Clark and a cream that will help kryptonite inflicted wounds heal quicker in just the two weeks he’s been working at the DEO. They’re trying to crack how exactly Kryptonite can be altered into other uses when Alex comes to them mid think tank.

She snaps them out of their nerd babbling with a pronounced clearing of her throat.

When she’s got both of their attention focused on her, she holds up vial. “Do you think you guys could take a look at this?”

Jack shrugs and reaches for it. “Why not?” He moves across the lab to prepare a slide.

“What is this for?” Winn asks Alex, leaning against the counter next to her on his elbow.

“There’s some sketchy alien activity going on. Not sure if it’s anything we should worry about or not yet.”

Winn shrugs and moves back to the kryptonite he had previously been experimenting with.

When Jack comes back, Winn hands him a new pair of rubber gloves. He takes the purple latex carefully out of Winn’s hands with his teeth and continues to his work station.

“You know,” Jack says, maneuvering around Winn with the samples, “You’re a much better lab partner than Lena ever was.”

Winn jerks his head up from the table. “Really?”

Jack drops the gloves down on the table and begins to set up to examine the samples. “Yes, definitely. Did I ever tell you about the time she threw a microscope at my head?”

“ _What?_ ” Winn turns to him, grinning at the idea. “No!”

“Yes! Although, I did sort of ask for it in a way.”

“Oh?” Winn turns to lean against the table.

Jack hums, nodding as he takes a look at the specimen himself. “She was trying to get work done… I unfortunately wanted to be doing something else.”

“Huh?” Winn prompts, causing Jack to look back at him, eyebrows raising suggestively. “ _Oh!_ Oh… _That._ ”

Jack laughs. “Yeah, I really was rather incorrigible, but sometimes it’s just… Chemistry.” Jack smirks, pushing the microscope back.

“So you guys had some... chemical bonds.”

“You could say that… but bonds can be broken of course.”

“Especially if one of you is a lesbian.”

Jack snickers. “Yes, especially in that circumstance, but new _bonds_ can be made.” Winn feels an intense rush when Jack chooses to look at him as he says it.

Then Jack removes the slide from the microscope and turns away from Winn. He snaps out of his stupor enough to turn his attention to the way Alex is flicking her gaze between them.

“Anyway, this is Maaldorian DNA.” Jack offers the slide out to Alex.

Warily, she takes it by the corner. “Thank you.”

“And now if you’ll excuse me, I believe it’s time for my lunch break.” Jack begins to move towards the door, snapping his rubber gloves off and tossing his lab coat over the back of a chair. He’s half out the door when something seems to dawn on him, making him spin around and grab the door frame. “Oh! Winn? You want anything!”

“Nah- Nah, I’m all good, buddy.”

Jack purses his lips, but turns to go.

Alex snorts. “ _Buddy._ ”

“What?”

Shaking her head incredulously, Alex repeats: “Buddy? _Really?_ ”

“Yeah? What’s wrong with that? We’re friends?”

She stares at him for a drawn out moment. “Oh my God… You’re _oblivious_.”

“I- What? No, I’m not!”

“Friends don’t talk to each other like that. That was _flirting_ , Winn.”

“What? Dude, no! We were just-”

“ _Flirting._ ”

“Jack wasn’t flirting-”

“He likes you.”

“ _What?_ No! You can't just assume-”

“Trust me. It was obvious. He _likes_ you.” She claps a supportive hand against his back.

“ _What?_ Jack Spheer? Billionaire CEO Jack Spheer? Likes _me_? Yeah, _sure_ , Alex.

“Be as sarcastic as you want, but that doesn’t make me any less right.”

“Guy’s practically a supermodel.” Winn counters, as though that’s all the reason in the world as to why it’s impossible.

“Yeah he is,” Alex turns back to the door, “but he likes you.”

* * *

As it turns out, Alex is right, and later, when Winn really thinks about it, it makes sense.

They’re standing across a table, comfortable silence between them as they tinkering with their own projects, when Jack does it.

“Do you want to go out sometime? Get a coffee?”

Winn doesn’t understand. “You bring me coffee every day.”

“I know, but… I was just thinking. Maybe we should go out. Together. Hang up the lab coats? No work, just us... I’d like to know more about you.”

“Oh.” Winn stares at him, struck dumb by the proposition. “You’re asking me out.”

Jack nods, slowly, like he’s scared any big movement will spook Winn.

Setting his screw driver down, Winn turns and picks up his sweater. “Let’s go.”

Jack’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “ _Now?_ ”

“Yeah… Before I have too much time to think about it and change my mind.”

Beaming, Jack looks warmer than ever. He trips a bit in his hurry to get to his own jacket, but makes it back to Winn in time to hold the door open for him.

* * *

They’re sitting in Jack’s car and with both of their nerves weighing on them, it makes it easy for Winn’s anxiety to take over his thoughts. They race miles a minute over different possible problems before finally settling over one thing. One thing Winn knows he can’t let go unspoken if they’re going to do _this_.

Gathering himself as best he can, Winn says, “I have something to confess,” at the next stoplight.

Jack glances over, eyes big and wide, looking like an anxious puppy. His big hands adjust against the steering wheel as though bracing himself.

His unease makes Winn feel a little better about the whole thing, knowing he’s not the only one feeling this way is comforting, like maybe Jack does like him as much as Winn does. It makes the revelation just the tiniest bit easier. “I’ve been…” Winn hates to say it, “a _fan_ of yours for a few years.”

“ _Really?_ ” His eyes are impossibly wide.

Winn thinks he should just jump out of the car right this second. “I know. I know. It’s-”

“ _Ironic_ ,” Jack supplies, glancing back at the street to make sure they are good.

“ _What?_ ”

“I’ve been a fan of _yours_ for a few years.”

Winn inhales sharply and chokes on the air. “You’ve _what?_ ”

“Yeah!” Traffic starts to move, taking Jack’s attention back to the road. “You’re _SchottInTheDark_ right? You’re on all the tech forums I lurk in.”

“H-How did you-”

“I mean… Your last name would give it away enough if you didn’t talk _exactly_ how you type.”

“How long have you-”

“Since before we met… I mean, officially. After I woke up Lena started praising you and I recognized the name, so I suspected… And then I met you.”

“And?”

“You’re much better than I was expecting.”

Something fills Winn’s chest feels as though it’s full of helium, like he could just fly away from sheer happiness.

“What about me? Am I everything you thought I’d be?” There’s worry in Jack’s expression, like he’s prepared for Winn to say he’s not everything he’d ever imagined and _better_. He’s the smartest person Winn’s ever met, professional when he needs to be, but also so pure and light hearted. He’s a friend as much as a crush and co-worker.

“You’re a lot warmer than I thought you’d be,” Winn breathes, staring at Jack’s lips.

Jack can’t look away from the road, but he gulps and moves his hand to find Winn’s. Their hands intertwine perfectly, the press of their fingers fitting like a key into a lock. Winn’s hands are much smaller, but it’s perfect. Jack’s skin sends shocks through his and Winn hasn’t felt like this since Kara, but with Kara it had never become so overwhelming. With Kara it was clear it wouldn’t work out. With Jack- with Jack Winn isn’t sure, but he’s willing to try.

He watches Jack until the car stops in a parking spot.

“You ready to get this date started?”

Enthusiastically, Winn nods and goes to open his door.

“Wait!” Jack stops him and hops out, moving around the car to open it for him.

No one has ever treated Winn like that. It means more than he expects it to.

Jack reconnects their hands and doesn’t drop them as they walk into the cafe.

* * *

The date is everything it should be. It’s just like they normally are, conversation flowing easily between shared interests, but now with more shy glances and touches. Jack’s hand never leaves Winn’s and it’s the most special he’s ever felt.

Jack pays for both of their coffees and they sit in a secluded corner on a couch, forcing their bodies close, sides pressing together as they converse. Winn’s jitteriness drifts away and he wonders why it was ever there in the first place.

They are there so long that rain comes and goes, splattering droplets down the cafe window and bathing the room in a cool grey light.

When they finally leave, dropping a large tip in the jar on the counter, it’s dark outside and the streets are calmer than they are during the daytime. It’s peaceful.

He stops, just a moment to take it in, the cool air welcoming against his skin as he breathes in. He allows his lungs to flow in and out, a total calm taking over him. It’s been one of the best days he’s had in months.

“Winn.”

He opens his eyes to find Jack staring, eyes just as intense as they are soft, and then Jack is moving into his space, leaving only inches between them. Winn’s breath escapes him, they grey smoke of it disappearing between them.

Jack is a lot taller than him, but Winn is beyond ready to find a way to bridge the gap between their faces and-

“Can I kiss you?” Jack murmurs, brushing his thumb along Winn’s jaw.

“God, yes,” he responds instantly, no question in his mind if he wants to or not.

The height difference is a bit of a problem and in the time it takes them to maneuver, a fluttering excitement begins to build in Winn’s belly. Jack leans down. All it takes is for Winn to push up on his tip toes and they’re _kissing_.

Winn’s fingernails find the short hairs at the base of Jack’s scalp and he scratches there, unable to stop himself as he holds Jack against him.

Jack’s hands settle on Winn’s hips, fingers pressing down into the skin beneath his shirt. Feeling like the most solid thing Winn has had in his life in years.

There are sparks and surges and every other cliche thing Winn had always heard about but never experienced. It’s the kind of kiss he’d always thought to be scientifically impossible.

“Woah,” he gasps, when they finally break away long enough to catch their breath.

There’s a deep hum of amusement in Jack’s chest that Winn feels under his palms. A pressure follows against Winn’s temple. It takes him a moment to realize it had been Jack’s lips. He doesn’t think he’s ever had anyone kiss his head before, no one’s ever been that soft with him.

He’d done a lot of research on love after Kara; what it felt like, how it builds up into something that makes you stronger than anyone else. Winn thought he’d understood it then. He thought that whatever he felt towards Kara was as good as he would get, but now, standing in the cold damp street, looking up at Jack’s skin bathed in neon store lights, he thinks he gets what love _could be_ , like maybe this thing with Jack might one day reach all of the things he’d read about.

The gentle splash of a car cruising through a puddle is what reawakens Winn to things outside of Jack. Reminds him that they must look odd, so intimately embraced in the middle of the street. After a moment, when he closes his eyes again and just allows himself to focus on the rise and fall of Jack’s chest, the soft brush of Jack’s hand up and down his back and the distant patter of leftover rain dropping to the ground, he decides he doesn’t care how it looks.

“Aren’t you cold?” Jack whispers.

“No.” Winn responds, surprised by the amount of ease he actually does feel, surprised at how _comfortable_ he suddenly is, like his anxiety has just packed all of it’s things and bought a plane ticket far away. “No. I’m _great_ … Are you cold?”

“No. Just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Winn is more than okay.

He moves back to look at more of Jack and- he can’t help but giggle at his skewed collar.

“What?” Jack asks, seemingly offended by Winn’s laughter after their first kiss.

“Nothing! Nothing! It’s just…” He shakes his head, moving his hands to straighten it out. When his fingertips brush Jack’s skin it feels like that place of contact is the only thing in existence, like the fact that Jack doesn’t flinch away is the most important fact in the entire universe. More important than all the stars and far off planets in the sky.

Because he can’t think of anything else to do and he’s unwilling to stop looking at Jack, he brings his hands up to brush raindrops back off Jack’s forehead.

“Winn?”

He has to blink out of his stupor, finally looking up from Jack’s neck to meet his eyes.

“Be my boyfriend,” he murmurs, looking exactly how Winn feels; completely in awe of the person in front of him.

Winn is sure his smile will dry up the precipitation around them, like the sun. His face hurts from the force of it. The blush on his cheeks stings in a good way for once.

He hopes a second kiss is answer enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone in the Cursed Chat who has not only allowed me to scream about my newly conceived Rare Pair, but has joined me in this hell and loves them just as much as I do.  
> Here are the links to all of their tumblrs: [Blake](http://blakebat.tumblr.com), [Kay](http://mcggiesawyr.tumblr.com), [Erin](http://trinikims.tumblr.com), [Sho](http://murdershegoat.tumblr.com/), [Will](http://lenaluthhor.tumblr.com), and last but not least [Rory](http://maggiesawyr.tumblr.com).  
> I love all of you guys. 
> 
> And of course, thanks to Alex, who once again came through for a beta: [Balexi](http://balexi.tumblr.com/), [Bal3xicon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bal3xicon/pseuds/Bal3xicon)
> 
> my tumblr: [darlinglena](http://darlinglena.tumblr.com/) (please come scream at me about Sphott)  
> ALSO THIS FEELS REALLY WEIRD BECAUSE IT’S THE FIRST THING I’VE POSTED SINCE SIGN OF THE TIMES AND THIS IS REALLY DIFFERENT AND NO WHERE NEAR AS HEAVY SO LIKE???? WHAT AM I DOING…..


End file.
